The No Ordinary World blog’s goal is to communicate science in an interesting and educational way to the public and foster awareness of and raise funds for endangered species. We strive to make science more readily accessible to the public while providing accurate and informative insights into the animal world. We love the natural world and want to show you how you can too!

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Where do bees get their buzz? No, I’m not referring to the sound their vibrating wings make when they fly. In fact, I’m talking about a much more colloquial “buzz” – the one you get from caffeine when you drink a cup of coffee. It turns out bees also enjoy the little boost in energy they reap from coffee plants when they drink the nectar, which contains low levels of caffeine that the pollinators obtain much satisfaction from.

Plants originally evolved caffeine as a defense against herbivory because it can be toxic at high levels. However, at low levels, it encourages honeybees to return to the plant – thus increasing the plant’s pollination efficacy – because the honeybees’ learning and memory abilities are enhanced, and therefore the honeybee reaps a benefit from the plant. So what began as a deterrent for herbivores is now a triple whammy for the plant, which now 1) attracts more bees because the bee enjoys the caffeine buzz, 2) ensures the bee will return because its learning and memory are enhanced due to the caffeine, and 3) repels herbivores at the same time!

This amazing creature is a master of disguise, blending in to its surroundings to the point that it is nearly indistinguishable from the litter of the forest floor where it makes its home. The gecko, which has evolved its elaborate camouflage to escape visual detection by predators, sports leaf-shaped tail and leaf-patterned skin, complete with veins, folds, and insect nibble marks.

Both crypticity and mimicry deceive the beholder into believing that the animal is something that it is not. Crypticity typically involves an animal avoiding detection through colors and patterns and can be visual, olfactory, or auditory (Stevens & Merilaita 2009). Visual crypticity can include camouflage, disruptive coloration, and background-matching, and can be quite striking. Crypticity is distinguished from a similar phenomenon, masquerading, in that masquerading involves the matching of specific inanimate object like twigs or rocks rather than matching the general background (Gullan & Cranston 2010).

The majority of individuals of the few extant (living) species of leaf-tailed gecko on Earth are endemic to Madagascar and a few surrounding islands and are inextricably linked to the survival of the Madagascan rainforest, meaning that habitat destruction primarily in the form of deforestation poses a potential threat for these cool critters. There are several protected areas in Madagascar that are therefore crucial for the leaf-tailed gecko’s continued existence. Some of the species are of “least concern” on the IUCN’s conservation status scale, meaning that the protected areas are doing their job for the most part; however, illegal harvesting of these animals has caused some species’ numbers to drop and vary from “near threatened” to “vulnerable” status. These little guys are unique and incredible, and offer just another reason to save the earth’s rainforests, without which many interesting species such as this one could not hope to survive!

If you thought crop circles were strange, odds are you haven’t seen these:

The underwater version of crop circles! Some of the intrigue with crop circles faded once people stopped thinking they were made by aliens, but these sand circles are even more interesting to behold once you know where they do come from.

So who or what makes these enigmatic sculptures where they are doomed to fade into nonexistence once the ocean erodes them away? No, not an alien race, nor a group of people from of the legendary Atlantis, but Puffer fish!

Male puffer fish craft their detailed sculptures by using a single fin to push the sand around, working day and night to finish the job, topping it off by cracking shells and placing them along the inner grooves of the circles. Similar to bower birds, the puffer fish creates these structures to attract females. However, the marine art serves a greater purpose than to look pretty to impress the ladies. The puffer fish constructs his art with great care because it will become a nursery ground for his future offspring! Watch him here:

Once the female has found the grooves, she will follow the ridges to the male in the center, mate with him, and lay her eggs. The more ridges the circle contains, the more likely it is that the female will mate with the male, because she knows that the ridges will buffer the eggs from currents, thereby protecting the eggs from disturbance and exposure to predators. Furthermore, the seemingly decorative seashells provide nutrients to the eggs and newborn puffer fish.

The artist at work

Next time you get annoyed by the sand that gets in every orifice after a day at the beach, or think humans are clever for using sand to make glass and concrete, think about how the puffer fish makes art out of sand to attract females, protect its young, and provide sustenance to its offspring just by using the raw stuff-and you might find new appreciation in sand, and the ingenuity of animals, a little more.

When the cicadapocalypse comes, citizens run from their homes and seek refuge in pretty much any place not overrun by whizzing, clicking, peeing monster swarms of insects.

Just kidding, no need to fear. Although quite a sight to behold, these insects are harmless. While you may already know that cicadas are unique insects because they hide away underground and emerge as adults every 13 or 17 years, depending on the species, you may not have heard some of the more zany tidbits about them. Here are some interesting facts about cicadas:

Cicadas emerge in cycles of years that are prime numbers because predators won’t as easily guess when they’ll be out in full force.

Cicadas employ a strategy called “predator satiation:” by emerging in broods numbering in the millions, cicadas ensure that after predators have eaten a few hundred, they’ll be too stuffed to consume them all!

Cicadas are “semelparous:” they mate, then die. The adults only live for 2 to 3 weeks when they come out every 17 years.

Cicadas are tasty! Everything out there eats them-squirrels, turkeys, dogs, even fish. And humans eat them! Just broil them up and eat them like fried shrimp… or you could always just eat cicada ice cream:

If you walk under a forest covered in cicadas, bring an umbrella. Cicadas eat by sucking up tree fluids, which means that they eventually need to pee it out. It has even been dubbed “cicada rain.”

Every 221 years, 17 and 13 year broods of cicadas co-emerge. I know that’s a sight I’d certainly like to see, but unfortunately it won’t happen until 2115.

However, the most interesting thing about cicadas may be the way they fight bacteria! A fairly new scientific field called biomaterials in which humans use the properties of animal’s physical compositions has been growing steadily with advances in technology, and it just so happens that cicadas have a very special mechanism in which they virtually eliminate bacterial infections on their wings.

Cicada wings have tiny spikes called “nanopillars” on their wings that kill bacterial cells on contact via physical structure alone. Watch the video below to see how it works:

The exciting thing about structural defenses like these is that they usually aren’t too difficult to construct, given today’s technology and engineering abilities. If we could engineer this type of material, it would be too small to feel, and thus could be applied to nearly every surface that could conceivably attract and spread bacteria-doorknobs, toilets, countertops, hospital beds, etc. So if you are lucky enough to experience a cicadapocalpyse, don’t be too frustrated by the loud, peeing, overwhelmingly numerous little buggers. After all, following their lead on disease fighting may lead to the virtual elimination of bacterial infections in the future.